Giverny it ain't!

When Alicia and I bought the house here in Ballagh we also bought with it an interesting prospect of garden. Actually a more fitting description might be scrubland… two thirds of an acre of it! We were told that the previous owner, an elderly lady, had a habit of ridging the area for potatoes in the spring then levelling it again in the autumn. She had left the house three years earlier leaving it fallow and still ridged. Meadow grass can grow quite tall if left uncut for 3 years.
First thing I did was innocently set out to pace the limits of my holding. I got about 20 yards before falling flat on my face and nearly breaking both legs in the gullies between the ridges.
The next thing we did was organize a guy with a JCB to come in and level the whole thing so we could start out with a blank canvas as it were. (Always a good artistic principle that.)
It was then we realised what a garden extending to two thirds of an acre actually looks like. My initial reaction was to wonder how much it would cost to concrete the whole thing and have done with it but then Alicia, who is brilliant with anything in the horticultural line said, “ Divide it into rooms….” Which is what in the years since we have done.
At first it didn’t look like much.

Just a flat expanse of grass, a couple of poly tunnels, and a greenhouse, which we subsequently watched from our kitchen window as it lifted in a storm moved four feet to the left, then collapsed in a heap of tangled steel and broken glass. But now… well it may not be Giverney but I reckon it’s as good as any other artists garden.
On warm summer days, and yes we do have them even here in Ireland, its great to step out into, lose myself in the peace, colours and paint wherever my brushes lead me!